A Tale of Life and Death, Mostly Death
by Yanni Firewind
Summary: Trapped, broken, and caged, a warrior sat trapped in the Undead Asylum.  But, when he was able to escape, his life was set on a new path, a path that would shake Lordran to the core, and decide the fate of the world.


I don't own Dark Souls, please don't sue me.

I sat, bored, wasting away in my cell as I had since I had been captured and brought here. The Undead Asylum, the prison for all those afflicted with the Darksign, doomed to spend eternity reincarnating after death, their sanity slowly falling apart with each time until they were reduced to a Hollow, a completely mad undead, quite possibly the worst fate imaginable. A fate I seemed doomed to, when fate rang at my door.

And by rang at my door, I mean dropped a corpse through the skylight with a strange knight standing over it. He quickly ran off, however, leaving just me and my new friend. I walked over to him/her/it? (The former person was Hollowed beyond all recognition) when I noticed a small glimmer under the corpse. When I pulled it out from under, I found a key, which appeared to fit the lock to my cell. I tried it, and, much to my surprise and happiness, it worked. I didn't know what was going on, or why this had happened. But since it doesn't usually rain corpses around here, I could only assume that there was a reason for this, and even if there wasn't, this was really too good of an opportunity to resist. I grabbed the broken remains of a sword that was my only possession beyond the clothes on my back and a strange ring I had found in a swamp a few years ago, and opened the door to my cell.

Carefully and slowly I crept along the corridor outside my cell, watching for threats from…well, anywhere. As my eyes adjusted to the dark (it had been brighter in my cell), I stopped, noticing the glow of a Hollow's eyes about five feet from my head. I froze, drawing what was left of my sword, but it didn't seem to care that I was there, something unexpected considering the effect that being that far gone had on an Undead's sanity. A quick glance at my own arm reminded me that I too was pretty far gone, and that I needed to find Humanity soon, so I could reverse the effect. Passing the benign Hollow, and another like it, I walked into the next room. There, I saw another dark room-something I had a bad feeling I'd be seeing a lot of, with most of the room's floor flooded with shallow water. A Hollow was standing in it, and there was a ladder on the far Fside. I waved to the Hollow, but it didn't seem to respond, so I made my way over to the ladder and climbed up it before the Hollow changed its mind about whether I looked like a snack or not.

When I reached the top of the ladder, I made an amazing discovery, a Bonfire. These magic…fires have magical properties that benefit the Undead, healing those of us that rest there, and it was usually where we regenerated when we died, hopefully without devolving into a psychotic, gibbering madman as well. When I walked closer, I noticed that it was not lit, which, hopefully, meant that none of the other Hollows in this place had used it, and it would be a safe zone until I could get out of here. I lit and sat down to get my bearings, immediately feeling the restorative effect wash over me.

A quick look around revealed my surroundings to be a small, grassy field surrounded by a stone floor. In one of the corners was an iron-bar door, and, straight ahead of me, opposite the way I came in, was a set of giant double doors that had "trap" written all over them in giant letters. When I tried the other door, though, it seemed locked from the other side, and I didn't have the key anyway. After checking futilely in the area I had come from, I was force to concede the giant doors were the only way out. With great strain I pushed them open to reveal a wide room full of pots, which was likely to have been a storeroom in better days. Another set of doors lay on the other side of the room, and I approached it, hoping this one would lead me to freedom.

As I drew near to them, however, I noticed a large shadow appear over me, and barely managed to jump out of the way as a giant demon landed in front of me, shattering several pots and columns with a massive swing of its hammer, which, fortunately, sailed just barely over my head as I dove to the ground. A quick look at my "weapon" told me what I already knew; I had no chance of beating this monster with something this pathetic. As the demon's hammer swung downward, intending to turn me into pulp, I noticed a small doorway-way too small for the monster to fit through. I dove out of the way of the hammer blow, which cracked the floor as it impacted, and sprinted into the passage, the monster's hammer slamming into the wall behind me.

As my eyes adjusted to the darkness yet again, the roof of the storeroom having been full of holes, I noticed a decent-size club on the floor. Realizing that it was better than my weapon (although, then again, almost anything was) I discarded the broken stump of a sword I held, picking up my new, better weapon. The small room I was in offered one more passage besides the way I came, one from which sunlight peeked out. I strode toward it, only to be ambushed from the darkness by a Hollow I had not seen. It slammed into me, knocking me to the ground in an effort to stab me with what little remained of its blade. I caught the hand that held the sword, slamming my new club into the head of the monster. The creature fell to the ground, fading into dust as I absorbed some of its soul. I idly wondered just where it would regenerate as I walked on into the sunlight.

Immediately afterward, an arrow slammed into my shoulder, courtesy of a Hollow at the top of the stairs. Cursing, I dove into a nearby alcove as another arrow clattered off the wall where I had just been standing. More arrows slammed into the small chunk of wall between me and the Hollow as I realized precisely how stupid this monster was. I noticed a corpse buried under some rubble, with one arm sticking out. There was a small buckler, which seemed to be mostly made out of a few cobbled-together planks, with a small strap attached to the back to affix it to its former owner's arm. I quickly pulled it off, and was happy to see that the strap fit my arm, and that I now had a slightly better form of protection than the rotted rags I was wearing. I snapped the arrow in my shoulder in half, pulled it out, holding in a grunt of pain as I did so. Ripping off what remained of one of my sleeves to form a bandage, I tied it over the wound.

I rolled out into the pathway again, dodging an arrow, which went over my head. With no better plan available to me, I lowered my shield, and ran up the pathway. Stopping an arrow, which embedded in my shield about halfway up, I closed the distance between me and the Hollow, and crushed its skull with a blow of my club. A key ring fell to the ground as the Hollow fell, and, in what was the latest in a series of coincidences that was beginning to creep me out, it the door in a passage to my right. I opened it, and pressed on.

I opened the door onto a raised platform overlooking the Bonfire I had found earlier. To my left was nothing more than a broken staircase, and the rubble from the stairs shifted far too easily for me to climb it. To my right, where I then went, were two staircases, both up and down. I chose the staircase heading up, but, when I was about halfway up, I heard a rumbling, and a small boulder began to roll at me. I barely had time to dive out of the way, onto the other stairs, which were mercifully free of anything with homicidal tendencies. I turned back up the stairs, and noticed a hole which had been smashed in the wall. I poked my head in to investigate, and saw a wounded-looking knight lying on a pile of rubble. I looked again-he was the knight that had broken me out of my cell. He looked up at me as I approached and said. "You, you're no Hollow, eh?" I could only assume my lack of flesh-eating tendencies had given me away. "I'm done for, I'm afraid…Listen, we're both Undead. Hear me out, would you?" I nodded, it seemed the least I could do, since he had freed me from my cell. "Regrettably, I have failed in my mission. But perhaps you can keep the torch lit. There is an old saying in my family…Thou who art Undead, art chosen. In thine exodus from the Undead Asylum, maketh pilgrimage to the land of ancient Lords. When thou ringeth the Bell of Awakening, the fate of the Undead thou shalt know. Well, now you know…and I can die with hope in my heart. Oh, one more thing…Here, take this." I received a key, and a small, empty bottle I recognized as an Estus Flask, a weaker, more portable source off the healing energy a bonfire provides. "Well…now you know, and I can die with hope in my heart…I would hate to harm you after death…so go now…And thank you." And with that he died, right in front of me, and faded away before I could do anything. I headed down to the lower staircase, which lead back to the bonfire. I rested at it briefly, enough to refill my new healing flask. I marveled at the power of the bonfire, at how the wound in my shoulder had healed as if it had never been there at all. I headed back up the stairs, and up the stairs that had thrown a boulder at me.

At the top, another Hollow leapt at me, and met the same fate as the others. The door behind him was lock, but the key the Undead Knight (whose name I just realized I had not even known) had given me took care of that. The door opened, and lead me out onto a balcony. I could see the ground outside the asylum, taunting me, just out of reach for me to survive the fall.

I was not given any time to plan how to get down there, however, as an arrow slammed into the side of my shoulder yet again, incapacitating my shield arm, and a pair of Hollows shambled towards me. If they had thought to attack at once, or had decent weapons, I surely would have fallen, but I was able to fend off their assaults with my club, backing into an area of the balcony the archer could not hit, and it only took one good hit to drop them. As the second fell, I pulled the arrow out of my shoulder, and tested my new Flask, which healed this (admittedly minor) wound instantly. I raised my shield, and managed to reach the archer intact, and kill it. There was another balcony to my left, overlooking the storeroom directly above where the monster stood, which gave me an idea…

I leapt off the balcony, slamming my club into the monster's head. As it reached up to grab me, I leapt off onto the ground, where I was able to get in a few quick strikes, which seemed to have very little effect. Just then, a giant hammer slammed into me, knocking me into the wall, and gravely wounding me. I reached for my flask, but the monster's killing blow reached me before I could.

I awakened again from complete darkness, outside the store room, at the Bonfire. To my relief, I still seemed sane, although I don't suppose that crazy people know that they are crazy. I pushed the door into the storeroom open, the knowledge that the door at the other end lead outside giving me new determination. The monster turned as I opened the door, the souls I had gathered from the Hollows I had slain hanging out of its mouth. It charged at me, swinging its hammer downward at my face. I rolled out of the way, and slammed my club twice into the demon's hand, which actually seemed to manage to injure the creature. I slammed the club into the monster's hand again, and it let go of the club with that hand, roaring in agony. I realized the chance this gave me, and swiftly ran over to the other hand of the monster. A few quick strikes, and it had dropped the hammer entirely. I jumped out of the way of the demon's angry stomp, and grabbed the hammer, dropping the club. It was extremely heavy, even when held in both hands, and I knew that I had to end this fight quickly. I slammed the hammer into each leg of the monster, dropping it to its knees, and finished with a downward swing that crushed its head. I walked over to the dying monster, and ripped my stolen souls out of its mouth. "This…is **mine**." I snarled, finishing it off with another blow to the head. As I absorbed its soul, a key fell from its mouth. I dropped the hammer, which was far too heavy to take with me, and picked up the key and my club. When I tried the door at the end of the hall, the key unlocked it. I pushed to door open, and stepped out of the Asylum into the open air of a cliff. As I walked over to the edge, wondering where to go, a giant bird swooped out of the sky, snatching me up into the sky.


End file.
